


resurrection fern

by forpeaches (bluecarrot)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Disabled Character, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Incest, Injury, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pantsing, Physical Disability, blame GRRM not me, canon-compliant incest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2020-09-01 20:49:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20264317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/forpeaches
Summary: Jaime wakes up in the hospital with one fewer hand and absolutely nothing to do with his time but find the wench who saved his life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from the lyrics:
> 
> like stubborn boys with big green eyes, we'll see everything  
...  
more a pair of underwater pearls than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

Jaime met Brienne on the day he lost his hand.

The new Lannister wing of the school’s science building had been nearly completed; walls and roof and floor, plumbing and electric and gas were all installed. Inner walls were being finished with the heavy old-fashioned woodwork that his father liked, and the air was full of noise.

The on-site supervisor showed him around without a flicker of interest in his face or his name either, thank the gods. It was so _dull_ to be the son of Tywin Lannister — hearing_ omg he’s one of _those_ Lannisters you should get his number, _or _Have you seen that arse?_ all the time.

And while he didn’t find construction very interesting, at least it was real. Tyrion shifted words and Cersei rearranged numbers and his father tore apart lives: what did Jaime do?

He went on errands. _Jaime can check on that site, he’s got nothing better to do. _And_ Jaime, tell me, does this sentence sound okay?_

They used him like he was the skeleton key to open every door, and for all he knew they were right.

So when the supervisor — a short woman with red hair — complained of sawdust in her coffee, Jaime automatically offered to get more.

“Jon can do it,” she said. “No need to bother yourself.”

“I’d like to,” smiling his best. “It’ll give me a chance to get away from this noise.”

And she relented.

Women usually did relent when Jaime smiled.

So he was alone, crossing the yard with an empty mug that read _I’m Not Bossy I’m The Boss_

when the bottom fell out of the world.

A voice was speaking calm and low. “I just need you to keep holding still for me. They’ll be here soon.”

Color came back next, and shape: but nothing made sense. He was laying down, why was he laying down? The place wasn’t even landscaped yet, it was all mud and straw and grass seed, and straw was itchy. He’d fucked Cersei in a stable once and got a rash that lingered for a week. 

Someone was holding his wrist very tightly.

Jaime tried to sit up.

“Stay put,” the person said, so firmly that he actually stopped moving and stared instead.

“Are you ... a woman?” He wasn’t sure. She was very bright around the edges and she was telling him to _be patient_ and her eyes were the bluest thing he’d ever seen: was this what angels looked like? “What happened?”

“Lay down and be still. There was an accident. You’ll be okay.”

His hand felt stiff, enormous. And something was hurting his elbow. “It hurts.”

“The doctors will be here soon,” said the angel, with an expression like she wasn’t so sure.

Jaime woke up.

The room was white, the world was silent. Machines beeped and people spoke in the hall and none of it made an impact on the depth of that silence.

Was he dead?

He squinted.

There was his father seated across the room, looking grim as death itself and twice as ugly.

This did not reassure Jaime that either one of them was currently among the living, as the likelihood of Tywin Lannister showing up to any event less than a President lying in state was very very slim. And even then, he wouldn’t bother for a Democrat.

Tywin said: “You’re awake.”

Jaime tried to move and found he was tied down. Tubes. He was covered in tubes.

“Go back to sleep.”

So he shut his eyes.

He opened them again some time later to see a dwarf sitting at his bedside, curled up in a chair, and making the best of what looked to be a damned uncomfortable seat for someone of his size.

Tyrion didn’t belong in heaven and he was far too clever to be sent to hell, so he was definitely alive. And that meant so was Jaime.

That seemed like a good thing. He smiled.

“You look like shit,” said his beloved little brother.

He _felt_ like shit. “What happened?”

“An accident. The landcapers knicked a gas line.”

That was a lot of drama for one gas line, thought Jaime. He ached all over and his hand fucking hurt and he couldn’t remember anything but noise, yelling, glass.

He said: “My hand hurts.”

“No,” said Tyrion. “It doesn’t.”

They wouldn’t let him see anything (“you have to keep it covered”) and — it made no sense — but until he saw it, touched it, the loss wasn’t real. “It’s stupid, but I feel like I’ve died,” he told his father.

“If you _had_ died, I would be significantly more wealthy. I never thought to insure your individual body parts.”

“I tried my best,” said Jaime, and slept.

When he woke up it was again to see Tyrion.

He’d brought a laptop and was working on gods knew what, probably something illegal or gray-hat; he didn’t seem especially pleased to be interrupted by a drowsy, drugged-up cripple.

“I met an angel,” Jaime said. “When it happened.”

Mismatched eyes stared. “Do you need a nurse? More pain medication?”

“Blonde. Big. She wasn’t a woman, I think. She helped. Helped me.”

“Brienne,” with a sour expression. “She’s blonde and enormous, all right, but she’s no damn angel.”

“She’s mean?” Impossible.

“No. Only somewhat ... uncompromising. She was the one who found you, you know. She tied off your arm — made a tourniquet with her bra.”

The tone of his voice said no one had been impressed by her untethered breasts.

“One of the EMTs said she kept you from bleeding out. Apparently you can die in a few minutes from blood loss. The human body isn’t very good at staying alive. For fuck’s sake, Jaime, _lay down_. I promise you that nothing requires your attention at present.”

Jaime, worn out by sitting upright, settled back against the bed. “That’s what she said. The angel. _Lay down.”_

“We need to get you off that morphine.”

“Cersei,” said Jaime. “Cersei?”

“She sends her love.”

“I want to see her.”

“She’s with Robert and the children. You know how they like to get away for these little trips.”

“She called?”

“Go to sleep,” said Tyrion, softly: and even half-dead, Jaime knew that to be a no.


	2. Chapter 2

Brienne had no intention of saving anyone, not ever, definitely not the day it actually happened. Oh, she was pro-saving people, it seemed like a great idea — in that daydreaming way, where she was bold and brave and confident, and knew the right thing to say to make people jump to it, and (why not?) she was beautiful too.

Also she was rich.

And she had a pony.

In this horse-filled alternate timeline, it was perfectly straightforward to confront old men wearing racist hats, and younger men who pushed around their girlfriends at the bar, and when her boss suggested she work a little overtime on her knees, she immediately decked him and then sued. And she _won_. It became a seminal case, referred to colloquially as _Beauty v Beast,_ and was instrumental in finally ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment.

Reality was such a disappointment.

She was too tall, too ugly, too broad in the shoulders. She had too many freckles from a childhood spent out of doors, and poor teeth because dentistry was expensive enough to make a horse seem practical.

She scrounged together her pride and the rent money by working landscape — sort of. Her uncle had hired her on to work in the family business — but no work that was _too much._ She wasn’t _licensed_, he explained hastily. It wouldn’t be _legal_.

When Brienne pointed out that he had not worried about green cards when hiring most of his employees, and that his son-and-lead-worker might not know which end of a shovel went where, but she had dug enough holes in her 4-H childhood to bury a entire damned army — then her uncle changed the topic.

Unfortunately for her, he changed it to _What would your father have said if I let you get hurt_, and she couldn’t reply to that with any sort of efficient snark; she couldn’t even speak about Selwyn nowadays without crying.

So she was a gofer, completing odds and ends. That was good, or good enough. And (this was a nice change) half the workers finishing the inside were women, a great big sprawling family from the North with the surprisingly accurate name of Stark.

Brienne tried her best to stay out of the way of people who knew what they were doing, in order to let them get on with it; it was one of her general life-rules.

So she only admired the small, ferocious, painfully-efficient foreman from a distance. Watching Sansa make short work of the tall blond man (sending him and his excellent bottom to fetch coffee) was a complete and utter joy ...

... dampened a bit by what happened next.

She had to talk to her cousin. 

Even as a child Vargo had been _insufferable, _and being paid from the family coffers to order people around did not do anything to bruise his ego.

Shame, Brienne thought. His ego (et al) could stand a good bruising. He was barely twenty-five and well on his way to a _second_ divorce, hastened by hours spent at the local bar and the vocal complaints of many, many women who refused to spend more than one night alone with him.

Right now he was explaining to her why the dayworkers didn’t need bathroom breaks or access to drinking water.

“They’re used to working in the heat,” he was telling her. “These people — you don’t know them. They’ll be fine.”

“So labor laws only apply to white people?” _And what about morality,_ she could have said. _Common fucking decency, you pig_. But Vargo was less impressed by those things than Brienne had been by his offer to take her to the gun show (said with a flex of one meaty bicep).

“You don’t understand,” he said now, and she surely did not. “They manage these things. And they know not to complain.”

Someone called for him, and Vargo waved his hand at them. “Go on.”

“There’s a pipe. We should call the city.”

“There’s no pipes here. Keep digging.”

“I think you should see.”

_“Fucking dig it up.”_

“You didn’t even go and _look_,” said Brienne, annoyed with him all over again. “What if —“

There was a noise like thunder or a train wreck or an earthquake, and she was thrown on the ground.

Her ears hurt. So did her head and her elbow and her hip.

Someone was moaning.

She sat up too fast and oh everything spun; then she saw who was making that sound and why, and her vision swung around again.

She had to help him — but oh god, the blood. And there were white things poking through it, and she had a feeling she knew what they were.

_Dad, I can’t.  
_

_Breathe,_ he said to her, in memory. _Close your eyes. What do you see?_

_There’s a man hurt._

_Go and help him._

She whimpered._ I don’t know what to do._

But she opened her eyes and then she _did_ know. She had no convenient belt or tie or scarf, so she took off her bra (moving hurt like hell, but nothing on _her_ body seemed to be bleeding very much) and she tied it tight around his elbow (below the joint), speaking to him the whole time calm as she could, though he answered back in half-mumbles and words she didn’t understand.

“Stay with me,” she said to him. “Stay here, okay? Help will be here soon.”

He opened his eyes. Even blood-shot they were vivid, the color of oak leaves after rain. “Are you a woman?”

Brienne flinched. “Lay still.”

“Tell Cersei,” he said, very earnest. “Tell her.”

“I will.” Who would name their child _Cersei?_ Didn’t anyone read the classics? “Lay down. The doctors will be here soon.”

Someone must have called them, right? Surely someone must have called them. People were alive, there was noise and running and voices. 

She wondered dimly what happened to Vargo.

“I wish Robert were dead,” said the man in her arms. “I _could_ kill him, you know.”

“Of course you could.”

His voice was getting fainter and oh the blood wouldn’t stop squirting. “Wake up, sir. _Wake up. _Talk to me. Tell me about Robert. Tell me about Cersei. Sir, you can’t go to sleep yet. Just a little while longer, sir.”

“Jaime,” he said. “I’m Jaime” — and then he passed out just as the sirens came screaming up the gravel drive.

“No,” she kept saying, “I’m fine” and “No, I don’t know who he is” and at one point she was given back her bra, as they had replaced it with a proper band.

Blushing, she accepted it.

Not that it made much difference. No one except Brienne herself was much interested in whether or not her tits bounced.

She’d agreed to be examined, mostly to get pain pills for her head. It ached so badly that she wasn’t quite sure even of what the nurses were saying. Something about CAT scans.

“What happened to the guy with me? The one with the ... the bad hand?”

“Are you a relative?” And when Brienne shook her head, the nurse said: “We can’t give out information about other patients.”

He was alive, then. Probably. That was all she wanted to know. Certainly she wasn’t going to _encourage_ anyone to break HIPAA.

She rested her head against the wall, closed her eyes against the pounding in her brain, and tried not to listen to the (mostly illegal) chatter.

“He was bleeding out. She stopped it.” Tiny clicking noises. “This program never loads properly.”

“He’s one of the Lannister kids.”

“Maybe his daddy can buy us all new computers.”

Lannister. _Jaime_, he’d said,_ I’m Jaime_, and yes — that was the name of one of the boys, wasn’t it? Jaime Lannister.

Except that it wasn’t possible.

Except that it was.

The Lannisters openly owned a quarter of the city and she suspected they had a good deal more, especially when Tywin put his name to this new wing of the local college in a blatant effort to buy a diploma for his grandson.

Nepotism and bullying and bribes didn’t shock Brienne — she wasn’t naïve, only inexperienced — but she found it unforgiveable when these attempts actually worked.

Suddenly she wished she’d let that Jaime bleed out, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note on Jaime:
> 
> i’m being deliberately vague on his injury ... possibly TOO vague? oh dear. i imagine he has retained something that isn’t quite a clean stump, but isn’t a hand, either. he needs physio to learn to adapt, use specialized tools, etc.
> 
> fun times.

Physical therapy was boring, and it hurt, and he sucked at it.

The only good thing was that the injury kept his family (more or less) off his back about Doing His Duty For The Lannister Name, and whatnot. 

His father stayed absent entirely, as was his wont when he had nothing to criticize, except for the one time they passed each other in the hallway and had a brief albeit gruesome conversation. (“How are you healing?” “Fine.” “Excellent.”)

Tyrion dropped in every few days to have lunch, which wasn’t so terribly bad except that Tyrion was _Tyrion,_ and Jaime couldn’t deal with that much personality at this paricular stage in his life.

Even Cersei eventually graced him with her presence, all golden tan and composed, sympathetic expression that dropped for a single heartbeat into honesty when she saw the mutilated, bandaged mess of what used-to-be-a-hand.

“Didn’t anyone warn you?” Jaime said — in a rougher voice than he’d intended.

“Father called.”

“You could have called, too.” Her perfume was so damn familiar, and it wasn’t the scent her husband liked — it was the one she wore for him.

Horrible, wonderful Cersei. 

“I was away,” she said.

“Don’t they have phones in — where were you? Belize? Kaibo? Nevis?”

“Please don’t be so harsh. You know Robert, you know ... how he is.”

Jaime looked at his beautiful, elegant sister — really looked at her. He lifted his left hand and traced the edge of a mostly-healed, mostly-covered-up bruise on her cheek. “I know how he is.”

She pulled away his hand and held it in her own, her head bowed down.

Jaime swallowed down his hurt. Whatever else Cersei was, she loved him — she _did_. 

He had always been able to count the number of people who loved him on his fingers and had plenty left over. He could do it even now.

That at least had not changed.

Jaime’s day nurse was the chattiest person he had _ever_ met. She went on and on, changing the bandages and cleaning his hand (if that was the correct term for it) while Jaime looked away, gritting his teeth. She was friends with some of the nurses who had been on duty when he came in that day (she said), and they said his hand was (Jaime deliberately ignored this unflatteringly graphic description of his injury), and anyway, the girl who’d come in with him —

“Wait, what? You know her?” He’d forgotten the angel, what with the new duties that filled his life — sulking and frustration and fits of rage, and grim attempts to write left-handed. He was very busy.

“Everyone knows Brienne. She’s hard to miss.”

“But do you _know_ her? How can I get in touch with her?” Smile, Jaime. “I only mean that she — she saved my life. I wanted to thank her. And I don’t even know her last name.”

As he’d expected, the nurse was easily swayed by long eyelashes and the faint hope of a nearby romance. “Tarth,” she said. “Her last name is Tarth.”

Brienne _du _Tarth had the scantiest social-media presence imaginable; he couldn’t even find her on Facebook. Only one digitized high school yearbook image, proclaiming her the daughter of Selwyn, captain in field hockey, player of ... _tuba?_ He squinted. Did they play tubas in heaven?

Surely not.

And this was not sufficient for him to descend upon her and sweep her away with his knowledge, in the manner of a flash flood destroying a town; it was more the equivalent of being lightly sprayed with the faucet while brushing one’s teeth. A tiny bit of information, a delicate spattering.

How could a man differentiate human from angel on the basis of a crooked smile, field hockey, and a tuba?

So it was with a familiar sense of annoyed humility that Jaime went to his brother, collapsing into one of the overstuffed chairs that stood in front of the desk, offering a false sense of casual familiarity to ... whomever it was that Tyrion did business with.

Come to think of it, he didn’t even know for certain what type of business Tyrion ran. But it was probably for the best that he didn’t ask for that sort of information. “I need you to find someone for me.”

“Why?”

“I only need a phone number. Maybe an address. And tell me if she’s seeing anyone. And —“

“You’re avoiding the question, which means you don’t think I’ll like the answer. What is this about?”

“I — it’s private.”

“I don’t do _private, _Jaime.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m not asking you to take out a _hit_. I’m not Cersei.”

“If you were Cersei, I‘d be calling in a favor at the police department. Alright. Are you doing something that is, technically speaking, outside the law?”

“No.”

“Your basic decency is going to get you in trouble one of these days. Are you doing something stupid?”

“You always say I’m being stupid,” said Jaime.

“Sure, you _act_ that way. But even Father admits you’re intelligent.”

“Oh, please. He only ever tells me that I’m a disappointment.”

Tyrion snorted. “Disappointing Tywin is a sign you’re living your life right. Even better if you can make him choke on his own tongue with rage. Fine. I’ll find this _angel_ for you, but I expect quid pro quo.”

“I never said it was about her.”

This attempt at bravado did not convince. Tyrion said: “Her name, as I told you back when you were drugged to the gills, is Brienne Tarth. She lives downtown in a shit apartment owned by her uncle. He charges her market rent anyway. No roommates or pets on the lease. She studied psychology and political science at school, but dropped out to help her dying father before she had to figure out who would hire anyone with those concentrations. Would you like her phone number, email, and bra size? What about the date of her last menstrual period?” He smiled. “It’s really astonishing how much personal information is bought and sold nowadays.”

Jaime grabbed with his left hand at the piece of paper proffered, fumbled the grip, and swore.

Tryion kept holding it out until Jaime made contact — and then he held on a little longer. “Be careful,” he said. “Don’t do anything that will make Cersei accidentally push you off a cliff. We need at least one decent human in the family.”


	4. Chapter 4

The cell-phone rang. Brienne wiped her hand on her pants and swiped at the screen. “Ello?”

“Is this —“ He pronounced her name with a long i.

“Bree-enne,” she said, automatically correcting. “Is this another telemarketer? I don’t like telemarketers.”

“You should blocklist your number.”

“I do. They’re jerks who don’t obey the law. Why would they? Their company makes more money in a day than they pay in fines for a whole year. Who _is_ this?”

“Jaime,” said his sheepish voice. “Jaime Lannister.”

She froze.

“Brienne?”

“Yeah. I’m here. Um.” She took the phone off speaker, as if that would make any difference whatsoever in the empty apartment, and tried to organize her thoughts. “How — how are you doing? How did you get my name? How did you get my number?”

“I’m doing okay, and that’s because of you. I wanted to thank you for—”

“Hey, no. You don’t need —”

“— dinner? Tonight?”

“You _really_ don’t need to take me to dinner.”

Silence. “Maybe I want to do it.”

It was her turn to be quiet. “You remember what I look like?”

Jaime laughed.

Brienne said, more cautiously: “You remember what _you_ look like?”

“I’m not trying to pick you up. I just wanted to thank you.”

\-- and he said it so smoothly that she suddenly _knew_ he was lying, knew it _for sure._ She pulled away the phone to glare at it, like it could make him feel the weight of her annoyance. “You’re welcome.”

Jaime huffed. “Fine. I am asking you out. Come to dinner with me, Brienne Tarth.”

“Why would you do that?”

”Why? _Why?_ Because I thought you were pretty. I like tall girls, and I like blonde hair, and I wanted to see you again.”

He’d thought she was pretty? 

She paced through her flat, avoiding reflective surfaces — mirrors, windows, uncrumpled tinfoil — that might remind her how totally, absolutely impossible all this was, in every conceivable universe.

She didn't need reminders. She needed Jaime Lannister to shut up and leave her alone. 

During the time she was silently hating him, Jaime sailed on: and what began as a cruise with a murder-mystery theme (shockingly) ended with a real corpse on the floor. ”Most people are happy when a Lannister offers to take them to supper. But I guess you're going the precious-naïf-unaware-of-cultural-reality route, hoping I'll be charmed."

Brienne glowered at a pile of clean laundry. “I am not being _precious, _I’m not interested in your money, and I'm not going to fuck you ever. I don’t care how rich and pretty you are."

A long hesitation. When he spoke again, it was with an about-face: the skipper had resurrected the corpse, the would-be-murderer was in the brig, and everyone else was tucking into a really excellent steamed pudding. He said: “How does seven o’clock sound?”

“I just insulted you,” Brienne pointed out, feeling compelled. 

"To be fair," he said, "I insulted you first."

"Not a great beginning."

"Even a bad beginning is a start,” said Jaime.

It wasn’t until she stood in the shower, letting the hot water turn her skin blotchy and pink, that she realized that sneaky little shit hadn’t told her how he got her number.

Brienne wore jeans and Converse and a tshirt with a high crew neck, which (she told herself) was what she would have worn anyway. Possibly it was even true.

Jaime was also casually dressed: some esoteric band tshirt and combat boots. His jeans looked worn and soft and they hugged his ass in a way that made her reconsider the possibilities of the evening.

Probably his jeans were custom-made. Probably his haircut cost more than her rent.

_And_ he arrived slightly early. And sit was _not_ in the ridiculously nice car she’d anticipated, but in a normal-looking Uber. “I can’t drive yet,” he explained, at her raised eyebrow. "Painkillers."

“I could have driven us.”

“Then it wouldn’t be a date.”

_Date_ indeed. He took her to a burger-and-booze place, some hole in the wall. The windows were dirty and the server barely acknowledged their presence, but who was Brienne to complain about a free meal? She wiped down the table herself, clearing it of crumbs, and Jaime's mouth quirked. “Only the best for my rescuer.”

But when her food arrived, quibbles over cleanliness and attitude disappeared; her eyes crossed with pleasure and she slumped down in her seat. “Fuck me, that’s good.” 

“I would not lead you astray, fair maiden.” 

She'd lived in the city for three years and she hadn't even seen this place, how had she never noticed it before? How was it that Jaime had introduced her to this? It was like having an orgasm in her mouth.

She should not associate him with orgasms in her mouth. She shouldn't be on this date at at all. 

Fortuitously (because she desperately wanted some new reason to dislike him), Jaime was eating his hamburger with a fork, cutting each piece with the side before he ate it.

She glowered. “You absolute _fop_. Is this something you learned from your personal chef? Are you too good to pick it up and hold it like a peon?”

“I can’t hold it in my left hand,” said Jaime, calm as if she hadn’t just called out his disability in about the rudest thing imaginable. “And my right ... my right side isn’t functional. At the moment.”

Brienne set down her drink, face burning. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“It's not fine, it was dickish in several ways, and I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s true. It does make me look like a — what did you call me? A twink? I'm not gay."

“I called you a fop, actually. You're not queer at all? A little bisexual around the edges, maybe?" What a disappointment to half the human race.

“Some experimentation, but it’s not for me. You?”

“Am I — no. Never.”

Something in her voice made him look up and stare. “What do you mean by “never”? You mean _never_? Not with anyone?”

She blushed again, right up to her hairline. “It’s none of your business. Saving your life doesn’t mean you are entitled to my sexual history.”

“Apparently,” said Jaime, “that history can be summed up in one word.”

She kicked his chair. “Shut up.” She was still blushing, and it only got worse as he stared at her.

The casual-to-the-point-of-griminess restaurant around them only heightened by comparison the effect of his beauty, as Brienne assumed she herself did. It was all desperately unfair. She was unwanted and the ugliest thing in a room that included several dead flies.

She sniffed.

“Brienne,” said the god-like Jaime who was causing all this trouble, “There’s no way to say this delicately: Do you need to get drunk? Because you look like you need to get drunk.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. You’re on meds, and I ...”

“I’m unable to imbibe, but I will happily protect you. I’ll be a bold and generous knight. I’ll slay whatever dragons come your way, even if I have to use my left hand to do it.” He paused. “Come on. Honest. Do you need a drink?”

Did she ever.

  
One very large mudslide later, and halfway through a second, and things were looking up — or at least Brienne was. “This ceiling is really cool.”

Jaime pushed away the glass. “Hey. Leggy girl. Do you drink often?”

“Give it back.”

“Darlin’, it is literally six inches to your right — your other right.” He watched a moment and laughed. “Okay. You’re done, I think. We’re going to take you home.”

“I don’t want to go home.” Home was full of bad memories of her dying father and — even harder to bear — the good memories. Back when he was healthy and happy. When he was going to live forever.

Home was a collection of plants she couldn’t keep alive, laundry she couldn’t bother to fold, and — and —

“Okay. It’s okay. We _won’t_ go to your place.”

When had he put his arms around her? “I can’t go home with you, e-either. You’ll try to s-sleep with me even though I’m ug-ug —“

He pushed the hair out of her face. “Please stop crying. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

“No fucking?”

“No fucking,” said Jaime Lannister, who seemed to mean it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the experimentation was with Bronn.  
(thank you to peach, who is brilliant and thinks of things like this.)  
i admit that i am deeply distracted by the POWERFUL MALE BONDING exhibited during their trip to Dorne, and ... well.
> 
> *
> 
> all i know about steamed pudding is from Great British Bake Off, where the contestants once had to make it.  
things did not go well. 
> 
> *
> 
> i feel like this chapter is awful for a lot of reasons, but picking at it isn't improving anything, SO  
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	5. Chapter 5

The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen was in his bed, and she didn’t want to fuck him.

— Alright, so Brienne wasn’t beautiful, not really; even Jaime’s infatuation didn’t extend that far. She had awful teeth and too many freckles displayed in a non-adorable pattern on her visage, and her form was less willowy model and more along the lines of a player in the WNBA.

It didn’t matter. Jaime (who was beautiful) thought that looks were overrated.

Brienne did not agree. She’d made that very clear.

She also thought that money was a significant need, while Jaime (who had inherited an embarrassing amount of wealth) thought it didn’t matter at all.

But: morning.

He opened the medication bottle — even with the regular screw-on-cap, it was damned hard with one hand — and took the morning meds, swallowing it dry like he’d learned to do as a teen.

She made a sound, she was already awake and oh gods, her eyes were so blue. She said, sounding like a child: “Did we ...”

“No.”

Amazing how fast her self-possession returned. “Good. Thank you. I, um, I’ll go now.”

”You don’t have to leave. We can have breakfast.”

”Made by your private chef?”

He tried not to feel like she’d slapped him, but his hand was hurting like a fuck and his jaw ached, too; he’d been grinding his teeth again.

She’s not being an asshole, he told himself. I’m just in pain.

He tried to smile. “We can have the chef make food, if you want to wait a while; Arya doesn’t get here til ten. But I am capable of cooking a perfectly decent breakfast.” 

Maybe. Possibly. He _used_ to be capable of it.

Brienne looked at him like she wasn’t sure he knew enough to come in out of the rain. “I’ll cook for us.”

”Are you any good at it?”

”No,” she said. “But I’ve got to be better than you.”

She was not, in fact, better than Jaime. What he (currently) lacked in dexterity, he made up for in knowledge: things like _Stirring pancake batter too much makes them tough__,_ and _If you eat raw bacon you will get sick._

”It isn’t raw,” said Brienne. “It’s _cured_.”

”Cured doesn’t equal cooked.”

She gave him a long look. “Jaime Lannister, aware of food safety rules. Who knew it?”

It was hard to keep breathing when she looked at him like that. He cleared his throat. “I trained in France, for a while. Made it to sous-chef, actually.” He congratulated himself on his newfound ability to edit out details. Not a word about Cersei, about Tywin, about his overall mediocrity in the kitchen. Just: _Yeah, I made it._

For a while.

”I don’t know what _sous_ means, but it sounds impressive.”

”It means under-chef. Second in command. See the bubbles coming up in the center of the pancake? That means it’s cooked. Flip carefully and with confidence.”

Brienne turned it with anxious caution, and batter splashed whitely across the cast-iron. “A failure,” she said. “I’ve ruined your breakfast. Why don’t you go back to being a chef?”

Jaime took a deep breath. “In a moment you’re going to remember the most obvious reason I can’t go back, and I don’t want you to apologize or run away or something like that.”

Brienne swore, tried to turn the pancake again, and ended up dropping it on the floor. “Shit,” she said, cradling it in both hands like something much more valuable had been lost. “Shit.”

”Please don’t. Please. Since — since it happened, everyone has been so goddamned careful. Everyone but you. It’s all _Let me cut your food up, Jaime. I can lace your boots, Jaime._ And — there’s got to be a way to remember I can’t do _some_ things, without thinking I can’t do _anything_, right?”

“I keep hurting you. I don’t mean to do it.”

“You haven’t. You don’t. You _aren’t_.”

She looked grieved and unconvinced.

She still held the broken pancake.

God, he wanted to kiss her. — And also do a few dozen other things, each stickier and more illegal than the last.

Fortunately he’d only lost (most of) one hand. He had a spare hand. Imagine if he’d lost a tongue. Never able to really know her mouth, to lick the smooth stretch of skin along her collarbones, to taste the damp, beautiful place between her —

It was at that exact moment, when Jaime was deep inside a fantasy of being deep inside something else, that Tyrion came in.

“Oh shit,” said Tyrion, looking at Brienne.

_Shit_, thought Jaime. _Shit shit shit. _He hadn’t warned her about Tyrion’s height, because he hadn’t expected they would meet — perhaps not ever, hopefully not until Brienne was so permanently, irrevocably in love with him that even the Lannisters wouldn’t faze her. A cripple, a dwarf, and Cersei: what a group they were.

Brienne blinked once, then bent over, extending a hand. “I’m Brienne. And you’re Jaime’s ... brother? Close cousin?”

Tyrion gave a false smile. “It’s excellent to meet you, Brienne. And so early in the morning. Why, it’s almost as if you spent the night.”

”Ignore him,” said Jaime, hastily. There were at least three very different conversations going on here, and he didn’t feel in control of any of them. Why did his family always insist on playing five-dimensional chess? “Tyrion, please remember our long and mutually-beneficial relationship and _shut your mouth.”_

Brienne said: “You _are_ related, aren’t you? Please tell me that I haven’t said something rude. I’ve already insulted Jaime several times this morning. I think my quota is up.”

“Jaime is my big brother in every way but one,” said the dwarf, laconic. “And don’t worry over insulting him. He’s full of unearned confidence.”

“Are there any other brothers I should know about? Or should I simply assume, when I meet someone astonishingly good-looking, that they’re a Lannister?”

Jaime, who was feverently trying to seal Tyrion’s lips together with the power of pure will, saw on his brother’s face the exact moment he realized Brienne was not taking the piss. As soon as he did, he turned the stare at Jaime.

Jaime (metaphorically) wriggled away from that steady gaze. He did in fact move to the stove and turn off the burner; the empty pan was overheating and beginning to smoke.

Conflegration averted, he tried to smile. “We have one half-cooked pancake, if you’d like breakfast.”

“Are you referring to the pancake your girlfriend has in her hand?”

”She’s not my girlfriend,” Jaime said, at the same moment Brienne said “We can make you another.”

They looked at each other and looked away.

Tyrion said: “You offer a charming proposal, but I must decline. Anything but coffee is simply too much at this hour.” He shuddered, delicately. “Brienne, I’ll raise a mug to your good health.”

“Why not mine?” said Jaime, annoyed.

“You’re full of it,” said Tyrion, and smiled, and left.

Brienne stepped near to him, handed off the pancake — now smushed into oblivion — and said: “I’ll go now, too. Do I need a map, or can you give directions?”

He couldn’t look at her. “Left out of the kitchen, down the hall, take the fifth door on the right. It’ll open into a patio garden thing. Ilyn will meet you there and drive you home.”

”A driver,” said Brienne. “Of course you have a driver.”

He didn’t reply. He could see the needle on the Girlfriend-O-Meter dipping well into the red. Just his damned luck to be saved by a woman who wasn’t impressed by money and didn’t fuck on the first date (or second, or third, etc).

And now he had to track down Tyrion, too. 

”Thank you for breakfast,” said Brienne, and she left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please imagine the pancake splooging whitely across the black expanse of cast-iron in a way that makes you feel again the full meaning of the phrase “sex sells”


	6. Chapter 6

Brienne did not like Jaime.

He was too tall, too blonde, too pretty, too rich. His smile was too easy and his face without it was too damned sad.

Dating was only going to lead to a big mess. No matter how much she had wanted to be swept off her feet by some bold romantic gesture — _when she was thirteen — _she wasn’t that young anymore. There wasn’t anything a man could do for her that she couldn’t accomplish with a battery pack and a vibrator, and they had no refractory time.

It was like finding a pony in her backyard with a tag round its neck: _From Santa._ It was too much for one thing and and too damned _late_ for another. She’d grown up, hadn’t she? and stopped wanting this sort of thing years ago.

A horse or a Lannister, it didn’t matter. He’d only eat the curtains and shit on the floor, and she would have to clean it up.

She had started to like him when they were making breakfast. (She had started to like him well before then.)

And then Tyrion came in, and they had a conversation aloud with her while having another one composed of raised eyebrows and facial contortions, and neither one of them acted as though she understood that they were talking about her even though she was right there — and she wasn’t an _idiot_ — so she left.

With a private driver.

A driver who was apparently mute either by choice or physical issue, because her attempts at conversation went nowhere, and he shook his head when she asked if he were deaf.

So.

So Brienne stewed in her apartment for a while — checking her answering machine automatically, hitting _play_ even though the number of new messages read zero.

She could practically hear Jaime laughing at her. _Bit of an artifact, isn’t it? Are you a Luddite?_

And he wouldn’t understand — not really — that her internet was cheaper bundled with the physical phone, and he wouldn’t understand — not really — that the only recording of her father’s voice was on that little old fashioned analog tape. (She used to play it over and over, sitting on the floor and crying. _Hey Bree, just calling to check in_ ...)

Or maybe, she thought, Jaime Lannister would understand perfectly well.

She thought of his face when she forgot about his missing hand again, how blank and smooth it went. How quickly he’d accepted being maimed, like it wasn’t even a surprise.

They’d slept together (slept.) and she’d made him smile and gods, he was beautiful when he smiled —

Fuck this. She needed a run.

The path took her to a favorite shop, off the main street and under the shade of an gorgeous (albeit unpleasantly fragranced) tree. The dark limbs were dotted all over with tiny white blossoms, a ghostly vision overhanging the sign: Tommen’s Topiaries.

The owner greeted her by name, as well he might. Brienne had been cursed with both a black thumb and the steadfast determination to make her apartment into something approximating the look and smell of a forest. This combination of traits made her a very good customer indeed. “Anything specific today?”

“Just looking.” The place was dense with foliage — mostly those favored by millenials desperate for an engrossing, inexpensive hobby or office workers desperate for any small sign that a green world existed, even if it was unobtainable to them.

“That monstera doing well?”

“Yes.” It was alive, at least. “So is the pothos.” She had named it _Porthos _after the Musketeer, thinking even as she did it that maybe _d’Artagnan_ was a better name. Like him, it was bold and wandering. Always putting its nose in where it didn’t belong. Picking three fights before breakfast.

Maybe she should have named it Jaime.  
  
She admired a very large, very very old, very very very expensive jade plant, wondering if anyone could buy it.

Maybe it would be someone who lived in a wing of an enormous house and had a building named after him at a school he’d never gone to, who could send girls home with his private driver.

Not that she knew anyone like that.

He would probably be tall and green-eyed, too. Hideously attractive.

Not at all her type.

Jaime had used the wrong hand to reach for things over and over, whenever he forgot about it. She hated to see it, she felt responsible in some idiotic way. It wasn’t fair of him to make her feel like this.

She found herself staring at a pot full of ripply spears, each ending in a tight curl. Something about the bright, clear color reminded her of ... nevermind. “What is this one?”

“Birdsnest. Tropical. Not super fussy but needs a good hand. Ah, Brienne ...”

“It’s not for me,” said Brienne, rather grimly. _Needs a good hand _indeed. The universe did like its little jokes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the lovely, stinky white tree is a Bradford Pear; their scent is often compared to old semen.


	7. Chapter 7

Awkwardness had not been a huge part of his life, before his injury. His family knew him too well, and everyone else (almost everyone) was charmed out of their panties — or boxers — by a Lannister smile.

Notable exceptions included Robert Baratheon and Brienne bloody Tarth.

Admittedly, Jaime had only tried to seduce the blonde.

Nowadays he knocked over cups, needed meat cut up for him, and gained _sympathetic_ instead of admiring and interested glances.

... from everyone except for Brienne.

Cersei, who knew him too well to offer either sympathy nor admiration, had come by and left again. “The children,” she’d explained to Tywin. “You know how it is.”

To Jaime, she’d given a lingering kiss. “I missed you,” she said. “I missed you.”

Gods, he had missed her. He pushed her against the door, albeit carefully, mindful of her clothes and makeup. “You should divorce Robert. Move closer. Move _here_. We’re not suffering for lack of space.”

“I have to leave,” she said.

“I love you,” he said.

“Take care of yourself,” she said, and checked her face in the mirror before she left.

So Jaime was staring out the window, trying to remember how it felt to juggle. There was a moment when the ball was in the air, when his hands were in motion, and it seemed to last forever. The rhythm, the beat of it. He’d seen someone tossing up huge rings at a fair one day and come home and taught himself by evening. He was good at that, good with his hands. The only thing he’d been good at, he thought. And now ...

Now he couldn’t even remember the name of the nanny who has taken him there. Bridgit? Margrit? Ygritte? Something like that. Quick-tongued and sharp, and still kind. She hadn’t been there long.

”Father won’t like it,” he’d told her. “He doesn’t like things like this.”

“So we won’t tell him, aye?” she said.

Jaime didn’t tattle: but someone had. And Ygritte (Margrit?) was replaced by the next day.

His right hand wasn’t large enough or functional enough to reliably grip even the lightweight scarves novice jugglers used: fine. He picked up a drink-coaster from the table and tried to toss it, catch it, with his left.

No good. The pattern was wrong. He could relearn it, maybe: but to what end?

That was when Brienne called.

_Buzzz, _and her picture came up on the phone. _Buzzz_.

He tried to swipe the screen with his right hand, which managed to open the call but also knocked it to the floor, in a manner that was not all impressively suave and vaguely sexy, as intended.

He heard her saying “Jaime? Hello?” from somewhere behind the chair.

He reached for it with his left and was at the wrong angle, and of course he couldn’t pick it up with his right hand, could he now? Fuck fuck fuck. “Hello,” he called out. “Yes, sorry. I’m here. I’ve dropped the phone.”

“—little pot,” she was saying.

Was this a drug deal? He pulled the chair away from the wall, wished for the eight millioneth time he had _two_ useful hands, and finally managed to put it to his ear. “Are you buying or selling?”

“What?”

She sounded startled. Amused. She probably was sitting in sunshine and shining it back out to the world, like the moon. “You said something about pot? I don’t partake myself, but I’m sure that Tyrion —“

“Nooooo,” said Brienne, patient as if Jaime were a toddler reaching for cookies. “No. I don’t need your drugs. I called because — because — dammit, this is _incredibly_ stupid and I can’t believe you’re making me say it again—”

“I doubt it was stupid the first time you said it. And even if it is, I’ll pretend that it isn’t. I’ll say it’s the best idea I’ve ever heard of.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Brienne.

They met in his yard — she’d declined his offer of a car sent out, declined his offer to swing round to her place instead, and had called herself a taxi. Which she also would not allow him to pay for.

She handed him something green and bushy, in a small ceramic container.

“What is this?” It came out as though he were criticizing a dog’s gift of an dead animal. “I mean, why?”

“It’s a plant. Because — because it reminded me of you.”

“You think I am plant-like,”  
said Jaime. “You saw a small potted plant and thought we look similar.” He set it down and considered it. “Is this a fern?”

“You don’t need to be rude about it. It’s a _gift_” — but she was smiling. Something akin to dimples appeared on her cheeks.

Jaime was transfixed.

She went on, unaware of or simply unimpressed by his adoration. “Your place is so bare. Spartan, really. All concete cinderblocks and wood boards for shelves, torn-up thrift-store furniture—”

“The low-rent look is very fashionable,” said Jaime, who had never been within a mile of a thrift store (or a cinderblock) in his life. His house was technically owned by his father (a fact which no one paid attention to except for Tywin) and as such, Tywin had hired decorators to furnish it in a style that Cersei admired and Brienne clearly thought pretentious. Tyrion called it _tongue-in-chic._

Jaime had always believed that he didn’t much care about his surroundings. Now he found himself looking at the fern (was it a fern?) and wondering how he would feel about cinderblock shelves. 

“Anyway. I thought you needed something.” She cleared her throat and licked her mouth. “Seriously, it — it doesn’t look like you.”

The only part of himself that Jaime was especially conscious at the moment resided in his trousers, and it was waking up fast. Regrettably, that part and Brienne had not yet been introduced.

He tried to keep his voice on an even tone. “What do I look like?”

He half-expected her to explain in detail his inner mind; she seemed like the sort who understood things and made decisions. None of his wishy-washy self-loathing nonsense, not for this girl.

Brienne only looked self-conscious. “I don’t know. We’ve barely met.”

“Don’t be silly. We’re halfway to being married.” He smiled at her. “I’ve already named three of our children.”

“Only three?”

“You get to name the other ones.”

“How generous you are,” said Brienne.

And Jaime kissed her — softly, fully — and pulled back, crossing his fingers surreptitiously. _Please_.

Brienne was a little pink.

She said a very foul word.

Jaime was not sure if that word was directed at himself or the situation. All he could think about was how much he wanted to take her clothes off with his teeth.

He said, with delicate politeness: “Would you help me find a good place to put your gift?”

Brienne took a deep breath. “Lovely. But you’ll have to lead the way; I left my map at home.”

He took her by the hand — she grabbed the fern — and they went inside.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 31 august 2019.

It was a bit of a walk to Jaime’s rooms (he lived in something more like an extended suite, or a wing) — and that, in Brienne’s opinion, was too long of a wait.

So she pulled him into an alcove near a window and kissed him thoroughly.

Jaime, who had definitely kissed her back more than once, moved away slightly. “My bed is a little further down the hall, if you’d like to make this horizontal — alright,” because she was shaking her head. “Remind me of that if I forget.”

He looked delicious. He licked his mouth — that full, perfect mouth.

Brienne very courageously held on to her morals and the plant with both hands. She had a strong feeling that if she released one or the other, she’d use the chance to strip Jaime Lannister of his clothing, push him to the floor, and make him beg.

Gods, it really was unfair to have a sex drive when men were allowed to walk around looking like that.

She tried to remind herself that he was wealthy, had bought her supper and drinks, had given her a bed to sleep in (_his_ bed!) and sent her home unmolested, and ... and none of this was helping her be mad at him. He’d done bad things; she knew that much. Why couldn’t she remember any of that right now?

“Um,” she said intelligently. “I should, um.”

“Yes,” said Jaime. “We should ...”

He was half-hard. Brienne couldn’t stop looking at it.

“Come on,” said the owner of her favorite erection. “I’ll lead the way.”

He deposited her in his room and left, saying he’d fetch a drink.

She reminded herself she was not in his room but in one of his rooms. This was ... a sitting room? A den? An office? There were soft chairs and a low table and just this room was larger than her entire apartment and oooh, she really disliked people who had this much money and tossed it around like it meant nothing.

The way Tywin Lannister bribed a college to accept his stupid grandson — _humph_. In Brienne’s view, anyone who needed to buy their way into school probably didn’t belong there in the first place. There were a million better things that Lannister could have done with the money. Bribed politicans to increase minumum wage, or go after tax cheats, or —

Any of a million things he would never do, because it would cut into his bottom line.

She was thinking uncomfortably of her own flexible morals when someone tapped on the half-closed door.

Tyrion smiled at her. “I thought I heard the sound of a lady’s voice. Spending the night again?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?”

Oh, she really did _not_ like Tyrion. “You gave Jaime my number, didn’t you.”

He only smiled again.

“Why would you do that?”

”Jaime wanted to meet you.”

”No, I mean — why would you do that _to me?_ What if I didn’t want to meet up with him? Isn’t it my choice who gets my information?”

”Women always want to meet up with Jaime,” said Tyrion. “It’s an immutable fact of the world, like gravity.”

”You assume a lot.”

”Since you spent the night with him, Ms Tarth, I think my assumptions were correct.”

”That was — we didn’t fuck. We didn’t even kiss.”

Tyrion shrugged. “There are other things to do.”

”Why would you do this? Is he ... having trouble finding dates since the accident? Did you assume I’m so ugly that I’d be so grateful to anyone who wanted to fuck me that I’d ...”

“Ugly?” said Tyrion.

“Ugly,” said Brienne.

His eyes, so much like Jaime’s and so different, stared at her. “Let’s regroup. What did he tell you about Cersei?”

”Nothing. What did he tell you about me?”

”Nothing? He told you _nothing?”_

“He mentioned her name, when he was first injured, when he was delirious. That’s it. That’s all I know. I don’t even know who she is. Now tell me what he said about me. Why did he want to meet me?”

He took his time in replying. “You’re not like most women.”

“No woman,” said Brienne, through her teeth, “is like most women. We are all individuals. That must be a shock to you.”

“You’re not like most women that Jaime dates.”

“I am not fucking dating him,” she said — shouted, really.

And Jaime (who had apparenty been listening at the door) came back inside, holding the neck of two beer bottles in his hand. He set them on the table, and his eyes were tired. “Cersei’s my — our sister. My twin.”

“Oh.”

Tyrion said: “Jaime has a gift for understatement. For example—”

“_Tyrion_.”

“— he left out the two adorable children, our niece and nephew—”

“There are three children,” said Jaime, rather terse. “Joffrey might not be adorable, but he does exist and he is part of this family.”

“He hangs delightfully close to the main branches,” said Tyrion.

“The family tree could use a little pruning,” Jaime said to his brother. “I’ve often thought so.”

And Tyrion laughed out loud. Still smiling, he turned to Brienne. “Thank you so much for saving his life. I ought to have said it before, but I had other priorities.”

“Other priorities?” said Brienne.

“Don’t bother asking,” said Jaime. “He won’t tell you. Tyrion ... you’re leaving?”

They went out together and had a quick, brief conversation in the hallway.

Brienne sank into a chair. She reached out, took one of the beers, knocked off the cap on the edge of the table, and took a drink.

When Jaime came back inside a minute later, she was almost finished the bottle. “Are conversations with the Lannister family always this exhausting?”

“Wait til you meet Cersei,” said the man she was definitely not dating. He sat down next to her. “How did you get that cap off?”

“Skills of the proletariat, fancy boy. Am I going to meet this sister of yours?”

“Not if I can help it,” said Jaime, and handed over the other bottle for her to open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’ve seen people pop off bottle tops like that but i have never successfully done it myself, so this chapter is slightly more aspirational than usual


	9. Chapter 9

They drank a while in silence. “So,” Brienne said finally. “Your brother.”

“My brother.”

“You two are ... close?”

“Yes,” said Jaime. He imagined what Tyrion would say — all the many many things Tyrion might say — and steeled himself. “He can be a challenge.”

_I’m good at loving monsters_, he could say. Or_ If you think he’s bad, you should meet our father._

“What about your sister — your twin. Are you close to her?”

“... Yes.”

“I’ve never had siblings. Will you tell me about yours? Why don’t they get along?”

“Cersei has hated Tyrion since he was born. _Because_ he was born.”

“Babies don’t seem very objectionable to me.”

“Our mother died giving birth to him.”

“I’m so sorry. How old were you? What was she like?”

”We were about nine.” He could still see Cersei, screaming and choking in wild, inconsolable grief until a doctor came and made her sleep with a single injection.

Cersei at the funeral, looking all knees and elbows in the only black dress she owned — their au pair was a timid squeaking mouse of a woman, unable or unwilling to approach Tywin about his daughter, and there was no one else to buy her one that fitted.

Cersei, looking down on their mother in her casket without shedding a single tear. “Cold child,” he’d heard someone say. “Unnatural.”

Jaime had stayed awake all night holding his sister while she wept, and now he held on to her hand. It felt like ice. He wouldn’t even think she was conscious of him anymore, except that every time he shifted, she gripped tighter.

Jaime wasn’t crying but it didn’t seem to matter. No one expected him to cry.

And the woman in the box didn’t look like their mother, anyway. She might as well have been made of wax. He didn’t see any point in crying over wax.

What was she like? Brienne had said. “She was kind. She taught us, she helped us, she didn’t beat us. I was the heir and things were easier for me, but Cersei was something of an afterthought. She loved our mother desperately.” 

He took a deep breath. “So. Yes, Cersei a difficult person. A perfectionist, as strict with other people as she is with herself. And as for Tyrion ... he’s very much like her in ways. But they’re my family.” He tried to smile. “Family is inescapable.”

“Well,” said Brienne, after a pause. “That’s gloomy enough for a day, I think. Should we find a good spot for your plant?”

She was joking: but he stood up, embarrassed. “You’re right. I — what does it like? Water? Sun?”

“Jaime, sit back down. We can put it in a window somewhere. It’s fine.”

“Which one, though?” He took it and went to look outside. “This isn’t a very good view.” Did plants care about the view? Did they worry when there were no other plants nearby?

She said: “Maybe the bedroom would be better.”

“Brienne ...”

“We can also find a bathroom. Or a closet. Anywhere that has a door to lock. Because I’m a bit tired of being walked in on by your family.”

He couldn’t get right down to stripping her and licking every bit of her body, could he? So he put down the plant in a random spot (“excellent locale,” said Brienne) and joined her, sitting together on the edge of the bed.

He stared at her hands on her knees. Long-fingered, strong. Calloused. She’d insisted they weren’t dating, kissed him like she enjoyed it, and blushed when he got hard.

Trust this woman to bring him a plant. “Why did you ...”

“I was rude,” she said. “At the restaurant, and in your house.”

He shrugged. “I sort of chained you into going out.”

“I could have refused.”

“I shouldn’t have pressured you.”

“Jaime. I am trying to apologize.”

He winced. “Sorry. Sorry. Go on.”

She gave him an odd look. “I didn’t intend to see you again. I was mad about — I was angry, and being stupid. But I saw that, I saw the fern, and it reminded me of my father.”

There were several unflattering possibilities that arose with this. Jaime didn’t offer up any of them. He must have been growing up.

“He died,” said Brienne, flat. “And I loved him, and I miss him, and it was horrible. He told me, one of the things he told me, was to always have something in my life that needed me to take care of it.” She swallowed. “Something that can’t give me anything back. So — so I’ve been buying plants. And I saw your space here, all these beautiful things that don’t ever need you, and I thought —“

He kissed her then, sure of this as he’d been of anything in his life, and she kissed him back.

They fell back on the bed and he’d risen over her on his left hand when he realized — “I can’t take your clothes off. My hand, it won’t ...”

“I’ll do it,” said Brienne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plants do in fact worry about other plants and apparently their humans, too, which is unsettling for several reasons
> 
> sad chapter. sorry :/


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they talk.

Brienne said: “You make me feel like — like I haven’t done anything, like I haven’t seen anything, like I won’t ever get the chance to do or be anything —“

He ran his hand trough his hair, looking distractingly attractive. The asshole. “What are you on about?”

“Oh, you went to school in France, and you trained to be a chef, and your brother owns a company and your sister jet-sets, and...”

“And?” he said.

“And you’re one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met. While I’m barely making rent, Jaime. It’s not equal.”

He nodded, looking at his hand. “You’re right. It isn’t equal. You’re far better than me.”

What a ridiculous idea. An insultingly ridiculous idea. “You’re rich, beautiful, popular —“

“Crippled,” he said. “And perpetually unemployable. And my sister —“ He stopped. “Nevermind.”

“What do you mean, nevermind? You haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. And things are hard now, with your hand, but you worked in France ...”

“My father’s name got me that spot. I didn’t earn it. I didn’t do anything to deserve it, any more than I deserve the color of my eyes, or Tyrion deserves his height. It’s just something that happened. And in this case it took a place away from people who did work for it. You’ve done more, achieved more, than I have. And in fewer years.” He made a sort of smile. “And now that I have been properly humiliated, I’d like to never speak of this again.”

“My father’s dead,” she said.

He winced. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t mean it like that. I mean, he’s the only person in my life who loves me and he’s dead.”

“That isn’t true.”

“I’m ugly.”

Predictibly, he argued. “You’re —“

She put a hand over his mouth. “Listen to what I’m saying. I’m alone, I’m a paycheck from being on the street, and I don’t have ... no one is going to do me a favor just because I smile at them.”

He shifted away, catching her hand in his. “You did me a favor,” he said. “For free, Brienne. You helped me for nothing at all.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I’ll go down in history for being a good Samaritan.”

“History. Who cares about that? History is for schoolchildren, Brienne. It’s a bunch of dead people arguing about who was right, and all the things they can’t change. Whereas we are still alive. We can still change things.”

Her head bowed down. “I did buy you that fern.”

“You did,” he said. “And for the price of your smile, I’ll show you how grateful I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this took a while, huh.


End file.
